We recently locally went through a very acrimonious ballot measure campaign where the food police wanted a complete ban on GMO production or products in our county. They couldn't understand that this would impact diabetics in a serious way, or that it would stop the local university from doing ANY research on GMO foods, or research using GMO products (like lab mice with special genes, etc.) As a major employer, the loss of grant money being spent for this research wouldn't cost any jobs, the people would just do something else. At least that was what the proponents claimed.

Fortunately it failed by a very large margin, but the nuts are still roasting and have promised we'll see it again. After all, the farms that are growing GMO crops are "our farms" and it is "our food", even though they don't own the farms and won't buy the food they produce because it is GMO. And there is no other impact to the local economy or lives that a complete ban would create, no sir.

I'm going to guess that it has a lot to do with liability. If some hacker makes a bad batch of insulin and the people he sells it to die or go into comas, there's going to be a lot of lawsuits. What hacker is going to have the money to pay off, or the money to buy malpractice-style insurance to cover the awards? This is where the costs of the pharma companies come in, besides recouping development and research. Every time someone sues a pharma company for something like Celebrex side-effects, someone has to pay the award.

You're kidding, right? You can buy and give yourself insulin without a prescription or any doctor's supervision? Wow. I need to find a supplier! I can keep my A1C down below 6% and not be on record as taking any meds that can cause hypoglycemic reactions and the FAA will never know. Cool.

But that explains the price increase. DIY medication that can kill you if you take too much is a prime candidate for a lawsuit when someone does that. You're paying for all the other people who screwed up their dosages and sued the pharma company.

Citation required. The rules for minimum altitudes (which do not mention "urban" or "rural", btw) are not rules that define the upper extent of "private property", they define the lower extent of flight operations. And the rules for helicopters are much different.

Even so, please also cite a reference that says you have the right to shoot an aircraft out of the sky just because you believe it is flying too low.

Since FAR 1.1 has no definition of "surface", then "surface" has its standard English meaning. Therefore, yes indeedy, "hovering around your head" is a level that has been considered to be in controlled airspace. If you doubt this then you might wonder why airplanes that aren't even flying yet are under ATC control in some places. They're on the surface, not even hovering.

Unfortunately, your pattern doesn't exist. Inconsequential things like drink cups may perhaps become yours to do with as you please (because there is a valid assumption that it is abandoned property), but if someone drops a bag of money while walking past your house and it falls on your lawn, it doesn't suddenly become your money. I came home one night to find a box of stuff next to my garage. It was a UPS delivery that was stolen from a neighbor's front step, left behind by the thief when he found out it was cheap Specialty Merchandise Corporation gimcracks. That box didn't become mine.

Nor does anything mailed to you become yours even if it was sent by accident. There is a requirement (at least in all the laws I know) that you make a good-faith attempt at returning the object. That good-faith attempt requires you to notify the sender and make the thing available for return (at their expense), and only if they fail to take advantage of that does it become yours.

And your pattern falls completely apart when you talk about things flying through what you think is your personal airspace. Try arguing that the police helicopter that was assisting in an arrest in your neighborhood becomes your property if it hovers over your house and see how far you get.

The laws against discharge of projectile weapons in city limits do not differentiate based on ownership of target. You can't "shoot your own stuff" legally if you can't "shoot" legally.

That is simply untrue. The reason manned flight works, and the basis for the system, is the concept of "see and avoid". The only time that "see and avoid" is not rule number 1 is if you are flying in the clouds. If you are doing that, then it has become ATC responsibility for "separation" -- i.e. keeping other people flying in the clouds from running into you and vice versa. If you aren't operating on an IFR clearance, then there are rules about how close to the clouds you can go which are based on giving you and the guy who pops out of a cloud time to see and avoid each other.

Otherwise, "see and avoid", wherever you happen to be.

Now, there are "airways" that are defined routes, but there is no requirement to actually fly on them (unless you've received an ATC instruction to do so), and even large airliners don't need to fly on them. They'll often get instructions like "direct XYZ direct ABC" which bypass those airways. And the FAA Next-Gen concept is to do away with such airways and operate mostly direct. That's because there will be better tracking of aircraft enroute.

It is not a danger nor is it illegal to fly "off-road". You are quite incorrect in your belief that it is a "big no-no". It IS a no-no to fly closer than a certain distance from people or structures, or below certain altitudes (1000' over a populated area, unless in the process of landing or taking off), but "off-road" is quite common and quite safe. And that 1000' restriction doesn't apply to helicopters. Their rule says they have to fly at or above a level from which a safe landing can be made in an emergency.

Life sucks, but yes. Many airports have controlled airspace from ground to 3000' AGL in a 5 mile radius, specifically to protect aircraft operations into, out of, and in the vicinity of the airport. That's the general boundary of control of ATC at a towered airport, and it is mirrored in uncontrolled fields.

ADS-B has nothing to do with a prohibition on interfering with manned flights. If you can see your toy, then you really ought to be able to see that much larger manned aircraft that is passing by. You don't need radar or transponders.

You know wrong. Aircraft don't file flight plans, pilots (or their dispatchers) do. And there is no blanket requirement to file one. The only three requirements I ca think of right now are 1) if you are going to ask for or need an IFR clearance, 2) you are going to cross or enter an ADIZ, or 3) you are crossing into the US and need to deal with ICE. And even for (1) you can file an abbreviated plan at the time you need a pop-up clearance, such as when you've realized the airport you are going to has gone IMC and you need an IFR clearance to get in.

No, "aircraft" is defined by its intended use, from here: "Aircraft means a device that is used or intended to be used for flight in the air." Note that this is not specific to lighter or heavier than air flight, so balloons are also aircraft.

I suspect that a lot of cities have copied the same ordinance that ours did. In our city, it is illegal to discharge any projectile weapon within city limits. Doesn't matter if it's gunpowder, CO2, air, or a big rubber band.

"He" didn't enter until after the drone was shot down. Would you claim it was criminal trespass if your neighbor's child kicked his soccer ball into your yard and didn't come get it right away? That's "knowingly enters" (kick a ball that hard in that direction, guess where it will land) and "remains" (he didn't come get it right away). The only thing that would keep that from being a crime is ... the ball is not a "he". I suppose you could argue the ball is guilty, but it is hard to prove the guilty intent on the part of the ball -- or of the drone.

Given the amount of airspace in the US that is controlled from surface to some specified altitude, I think I need a citation for that claim. You can't seriously claim that the US government got waivers from all the people who live under such airspace before they could create it.

Is the correct solution to that trespass to shoot the five year old? That would certainly send a message to all the other neighborhood kids.

Generally speaking, in the US, that's false.

Just to name a few "rights" you do not have:

1. You cannot tell the FAA to move the final approach course for an instrument approach from over your house. You cannot tell them not to vector aircraft over your house.

2. If you build an antenna greater than a certain height in "your" airspace, you must install anti-collision lights.

Two examples.

From the fact that the drone was being used to take photographs of a friend's house, I think we can assume it had a camera.

Do you shoot at all aircraft that pass over your private property, or just those that you think you can get away with because it amuses you to destroy other people's stuff?

"Surface" is pretty low, and there are lots of places that controlled airspace extends that low. Somebody thought of that, and lots of other people know it.

"Can happen" is not "does happen".

If humans and chickens didn't share the biological basis for virus and antibody action, then testing vaccines on chickens would be a waste of time. As animals that evolved on planet Earth, we both have the same mechanisms for mutations, virus replication, and antibody systems, even if the biology isn't identical and not every virus that will infect a chicken will have the same effect on a human. If humans and chickens do NOT share enough commonality, then why do they call it "chicken pox"?

It's ridiculous to claim that an issue observed in testing a virus on chickens cannot apply to human viruses and their immune systems because one is a chicken and one is not.

You then proceed to describe exactly the process through which the antibiotic sensitive bacteria die so the mutations that have resistance become dominant. Where do you think those antibiotic resistant bacteria got their immunity to that specific antibiotic? They didn't order it from Amazon Prime, just sayin.

And those "fittest" become so because ...?